


Don't Wait (Don't Be Late)

by LadyLondonderry



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Hangover, Las Vegas Wedding, M/M, Mutual Pining, Pining, lads holiday
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-14
Updated: 2017-06-14
Packaged: 2018-11-13 23:44:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,981
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11195961
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LadyLondonderry/pseuds/LadyLondonderry
Summary: Harry’s ditched his coffee (Liam looked at him reproachfully for dumping it) in favor of some sort of super smoothie (“the right way to get rid of a hangover, Lou”) and Louis watches raptly as his sinfully large hand wraps all the way around the glass. It’s a hand he’s stared at often, with focused attention to to the way the bones in his hand appear when he’s gripping things, and the little veins that criss cross up to his knuckles, and -“Is that a ring?” Louis squeaks.There, on the ring finger of his left hand, is a thick gold band. Harry puts down his smoothie and looks at his hand in surprise. “Yeah,” he says slowly, examining it. “It is.”Or, the Married in Vegas AU where the wrong ones end up married





	Don't Wait (Don't Be Late)

**Author's Note:**

> This fic was written as part of an ongoing challenge. We each select random numbers and are given a specific emotion from the book 1000 Feelings For Which There Are No Names. To read the other fics written in this challenge, [click here](http://archiveofourown.org/collections/ShortFic_Challenge_For_Which_There_Is_No_Name/works), or you can find the masterpost on tumblr [here](http://lululawrence.tumblr.com/post/159679804243/1000-feelings-for-which-there-are-no-names-prompt).
> 
> 375\. The shock of realizing how fundamentally simple everything is.

_ A lad’s holiday is a volatile, dangerous thing. _

The first thing Louis becomes aware of is a phone going off. It’s a ringtone that sounds faintly familiar, but right at this moment he can’t place who’s phone it belongs to.

The problem is, it keeps going off. Each time it starts again it’s a little more grating to his poor, tender ears. By the fourth time it starts to go off, Louis is about ready to murder a man. Or at least, he would be if he didn’t feel like he was about to vomit if he so much as tried to sit up. 

It’s the fifth time that the ringtone goes off that there’s finally some sound of movement, a groan, and the phone cuts off into blissful silence.

_ Thank fuck, _ Louis thinks to himself. Even thinking feels too loud, though, and he vows to stop thinking forever.

“Shit.”

Liam’s thinking is also too loud. “Shut up, Liam,” Louis begs.

“Niall’s in jail,” Liam says.

“At least he’s quiet about it.”

“That was him calling. We need to go get him.”

“Fuck Niall.”

There’s a shuffling noise followed by a clatter and then blinding light flooding in, hitting Louis’s eyelids and making his head pound. “I’m going to murder you,” he groans, pulling a pillow over his face.

“I’m getting us coffee,” Liam says.

The door slams and Louis vows death upon Liam’s family to the seventh generation.

It’s quiet now, thankfully, but the sun is still glaring into the room and Louis is becoming increasingly aware of how much he needs to pee.

Fuck everything.

It takes a while before he’s finally able to open his eyes and make his way toward the en-suit. The room is a mess; the floor is covered in blankets, pillows and couch cushions, and all of that is covered by a layer of beer bottles, like a primary school sleepover was interrupted by some very, very drunk graduate studies students.

In the en-suit, Louis pees and then takes a moment to breathe and force himself not to throw up. It’s been a long time since he was this hungover. Splashing cool water on his face helps, as does slowly downing three glasses of it, along with the ibuprofen he finds in the cabinet.

On his way back to the bed, he accidentally trods on a human form beneath the mass of blankets. 

“Fuck, sorry,” Louis says, although none too sorry who he’s apologizing to.

“S’okay,” a croaky, deep voice responds. The sort of croaky, deep morning voice that he would recognise anywhere.

“Haz,” Louis mumbles, dropping down next to the now moving bundle of blankets. “Didn’t even see you there. You need coffee? Liam’s bringing coffee.”

“Not gonna get up,” comes the muffled reply. 

“Of course,” Louis says gently. “I’ll make sure he doesn’t trod on you, don’t worry.”

He makes a nest in the blankets next to where Harry is buried, and waits for the ibuprofen to kick in. Dimly, he wonders where his phone is. He also wonders how the room got like this. As his brain’s processing power starts to speed up he begins to also wonder why Niall is in jail.

When Liam comes back, he’s got a to-go cup in each hand. 

“What, none for Harry?” Louis demands.

“What?” Liam asks, pulling a confused face. “Harry’s got his own room, he can get his own coffee.”

“Excuse you, Liam,” Louis says. “Harry’s decided to share our room and you should have brought him coffee.” He takes both cups down from Liam’s hands while Liam’s still too confused to react. He takes a sip from one of them and pulls a face (coffee is disgusting), before holding the other one out in the vague direction of Harry. “Come on, Haz. Drink some coffee so we can go pick Niall up from jail.”

Liam’s expression turns from confusion to a split second of utter terror as Harry sits up, emerging like a swamp monster from below the sheets - he must have been laying on the hardwood with how many blankets were covering him.

“Shit, Harry how the fuck did you get down there?” Liam asks incredulously.

Harry hasn’t actually opened his eyes yet, instead turning blindly toward the smell of coffee. His hair is a bird’s nest, sticking up at all odd angles, and he seems to be sporting a t-shirt with a tie printed onto the front. Louis takes Harry’s hand guides it to the cup of coffee, which he takes and drinks deeply from immediately.

“Wait…” Liam says, now looking down at his empty hands.

“So. Niall.” Louis sips the coffee again. “This could use sugar. But as you were saying. Niall’s in jail.”

Liam is giving Louis a look that says  _ I know what you did, _ but as those looks have zero effect on Louis, there’s a brief staring contest until Liam gives in. “Yeah, apparently we can’t pick him up until the jail opens, which is at ten? That’s half an hour.”

“What the fuck,” Louis groans. “He woke us up  _ early?” _ I wouldn’t even be awake this early on a  _ normal _ day!”

Harry slowly reaches his hand up and pats Louis’s head. He’s got his eyes open now, just barely. “That’s because you don’t do yoga with me,” he drawls. “You should do yoga.”

Louis leans into his touch. “I’ll watch  _ you _ do yoga,” he says.

“Okay…” Liam sounds uncomfortable. “I think we should get breakfast. Because I don’t want to be here with whatever this is.”

“McDonalds,” Louis says instantly.

“There’s a nice little farm-to-table place I saw down the street yesterday,” Harry says thoughtfully. “Called… Acre?”

“You  _ would _ go for the hipster joint,” Louis says. “I just want a burger.”

“They probably have burgers there…” Harry pouts. 

“I just need somewhere that has coffee,” Liam says mournfully.

— 

They end up at Acre.

“This tastes horrible,” Louis complains, putting down the burger he’s just taken a bite of.

“I told you not to get a mushroom burger,” Liam scolds. 

“It was this or tofu! There’s nothing more disgusting than fake meat! At least mushrooms aren’t pretending to be meat.”

“Tofu is good though,” Harry says, unbothered. He’s eating a kale omelette that he’s more or less drowned in sriracha sauce. “Especially grilled. Have I grilled you tofu before? I should.”

“You do that and I’m ordering pizza,” Louis says, no spite in his voice.

Liam is drinking fair trade coffee and eating scrambled eggs. He’s the only one who was able to find his wallet and Louis thinks he may be a bit miffed that he had to pay for all of them. He’s looking up directions to the county jail on his phone.

“Does anyone know how Niall ended up in jail last night?” Louis asks the table.

“Don’t remember much after the strip club, if I’m honest,” Liam says, cheeks tinting.

The strip club. That’s an unfortunate memory that Louis still has. The lad’s holiday is a celebration of all four of them graduating university (and two of them getting into graduate programs), but with a group where half of them are into men and half are into women, it’s difficult to find  _ entertainment, _ as it were, for all of them. This strip club boasted strippers of all genders, which was why Niall had put it on the docket, but what he failed to mention was that it was a night dedicated to cosplay.

This meant, of course, a lot of laughs from Niall and Louis, and a lot of pictures taken by Harry of various anime characters dancing it up on a very uncomfortable Liam. There were shots taken after that, and then Louis remembers them all piling into a taxi to get to a club across town that Niall swore was aces.

After that, things get a little hazy.

“He didn’t say in the call,” Liam says.

“Probably public nudity,” Harry mumbles, taking another bite of his omelette.

“That does sound like Niall,” Louis agrees, looking over at Harry. He’s ditched his coffee (Liam looked at him reproachfully for dumping it) in favor of some sort of super smoothie  _ (“the right way to get rid of a hangover, Lou”) _ and Louis watches raptly as his sinfully large hand wraps all the way around the glass. It’s a hand he’s stared at often, with rapt attention to to the way the bones in his hand appear when he’s gripping things, and the little veins that criss cross up to his knuckles, and - 

“Is that a ring?” Louis squeaks.

There, on the ring finger of his left hand, is a thick gold band. Harry puts down his smoothie and looks at his hand in surprise. “Yeah,” he says slowly, examining it. “It is.”

He slides it off his finger with his other hand and there, where Louis and Harry can both read it, yesterday’s date is inscribed.

“Oh,” says Harry slowly.

“What the fuck,” Louis breathes.

“What? What is it?” Liam asks from across the table.

“It’s a wedding ring,” Harry says.

“It… It might not be,” Louis reasons. He’s reasoning with himself more than anyone else. This feels like a weird, horrible dream. Harry can’t have gotten married. Louis would definitely remember that, right? Who would Harry even have married?

He stops himself from checking his own hand. He knows there’s no ring there, as much as he in this moment might wish otherwise.

“No, I think… I remember a chapel,” Harry says. “I remember… Oh, that’s why I got this shirt.” He looks down at the t-shirt with the tie printed onto it. “I think I gave my shirt to… a homeless person. But they said I needed to wear a shirt in the chapel.”

Liam looks confused.

Louis wants to puke.

“Wait, who did you marry?” Liam asks. He suddenly looks down at his own fingers, which Louis has already glanced at. They’re all ring-less.

“Um…” Harry takes another drink of his smoothie. “That’s… a little unclear,” he says.

“You must not really love them, then,” Louis says immediately. “We can ask at the jail how to get you a divorce, yeah?”

Harry hums. Louis doesn’t like how he doesn’t jump to agree. Liam once again looks like he feels caught in the middle of things.

The thing is, Louis  _ needs _ Harry to get a divorce. He needs this because it’s been his dream since they first met on their first day of university to marry Harry Styles, and he can’t do that if Harry’s  _ already married. _

Sure, it’s been four years since that day and Louis has yet to ask Harry on a date, but there’s  _ reasons _ for that! For one thing, Louis is  _ terrified of rejection! _ For another, Harry was dating a man named Jake for almost a full year of that time. Plus, Louis’s just been waiting for the right moment, is all.

Liam and Harry finish their breakfast in near silence. Louis doesn’t eat any more, just pushes his chips around his plate a bit until Liam announces that the Uber he requested is waiting out front.

It turns out that they’re not going to big scary American county jail, but to the Vegas Police Department, which is only about a fifteen minute drive. Liam talks at length with the driver, an older woman who has four chihuahuas at home. Louis just keeps glancing over at Harry’s ring.

“Are you not even a little curious?” he asks eventually.

Harry shrugs. “I figure Niall might know,” is all he says.

It’s driving Louis crazy.

When they arrive at the police station, the woman bids them a good day and slips Liam a wallet sized family portrait of her dogs before driving away. Right now is  _ not _ the time for teasing but Louis remembers this for later.

Inside, when they ask for Niall, a number of people breath a sigh of relief. 

“He’ll be out in a moment,” the woman at the desk says. “People are going to be glad to be rid of him. No offence to you foreigners, but no one wants to hear Irish drinking songs at six in the morning on a Saturday. We’ve breathalyzed him twice this morning because people were convinced he was still drunk. The guy just won’t shut up.”

Well, that does sound like Niall.

When he finally appears from around a corner, Louis’s jaw falls open. He’s got a black eye and a cut lip, which he looks very nonchalant about as he eats a jelly donut.

“Neil, what happened to you?” Louis asks, and Niall stops in his tracks.

“What happened to - do you not remember last night?” Niall asks.

It’s then that Louis spots the ring on Niall’s finger.

“No,” he says. “You didn’t.”

This has to be a joke.

But Niall’s  _ terrible _ at jokes, he can’t keep a straight face for anything! He’s not laughing now, though, and now that Louis is glancing back at Harry he’s starting to think that Harry has remembered this fact for longer than he let on.

Which means… Harry doesn’t actually  _ want _ this, does he?

But then Niall is walking over to Harry, right there in front of Louis, and landing a big, powdery donut kiss on his cheek. “Thanks for coming, husband,” he says.

Harry smiles. He  _ dimples. _ Louis is going to cry. “That’s what he said,” Harry says, and giggles.

_ “No,” _ Louis says. Maybe he shouts it. He’s not sure. He also doesn’t know he’s swung at Niall until Liam’s arms are around him holding him back from trying it again.

“What the hell, Tommo?” Niall shouts. “You trying to give me another black eye to match the one you gave me yesterday?”

Louis gapes at him. “I gave you?”

“Yeah, you stormed in right after Harry and I said  _ ‘I do’! _ I mean, I know I was a bit drunk but I didn’t push  _ myself _ into the lake! Got arrested for drunken disorderly conduct for that!”

“Arrested is a strong word-” the woman behind them at the desk tries to point out.

“I really thought you would have sorted this out by now,” Niall says. “I mean, Harry and I are in love, why can’t you just accept-”

“No you’re not!” Louis yells. “You can’t be! I’m Harry’s best friend and he definitely would have told me if he was in love!”

“Have you told  _ him?” _ Niall asks, and Louis freezes.

“I- I…” Why is this so hard? He should be saying something like,  _ that’s not the point _ or  _ I’m not in love _ or  _ that’s different _ but he’s caught off guard, and eventually blurts out, “It’s hard to tell someone you’re in love with them!”

There’s silence. Even the receptionist, who has been sneakily filming them, puts her phone out of sight.

“Well it took you long enough,” Niall says finally.

Louis isn’t looking at Niall. Or Liam. Definitely not Harry.

Niall continues, “I mean, Harry and I cooked this up weeks ago, I figured you would object long before we got to the altar but apparently you’re too stubborn for that.”

Louis looks up to meet Harry’s eyes, shocked. “You knew?”

Harry shrugs. “Niall and Liam kept telling me, but I wasn’t ever, like, confident.” He looks sheepish. “I liked you, though. For years now. Was just… waiting for you to ask me out.”

“You-” Louis is dumbfounded. “Why didn’t you say anything?”

Was it really that simple?

“You always said that you would never say yes if a guy asked you out! You told me so many times, Lou! You said you had to be the one to ask them out, or it didn’t count!” Harry looks miserable. Harry should never look miserable. Louis might cry if Harry continues to look this miserable.

“I’m sorry, Haz,” Louis says, taking deep breaths to try to keep himself from breaking into tears. “I know it’s no excuse but I was so, so afraid that you’d reject me. You rejected all those other guys! Chris and Rob and Mark…”

“Yeah, because I was waiting for you!” Harry shouts. Harry doesn’t shout. Ever.

Louis bursts into tears.

“I-I’m sorry!” he says through sobs, hands over his face. “I’m an i-idiot and I’m sorry and I love you so much, please don’t marry Niall! I’ll a-ask you out every day for- for the rest of my life if you just divorce Niall-”

There are arms around him that Louis immediately recognises as  _ Harry _ and he collapses into them gratefully.

“Shhh, don’t be ridiculous, Lou,” Harry is saying, his voice soothing. “You don’t need to keep asking me out every day once we’re married.”

Louis hiccups a laugh into Harry’s (nice, warm  _ broad)  _ chest. “God, Haz, y-you must think I’m an  _ idiot.” _

“Yes, but I’ve waited long enough for this idiot to ask me out, just so I can do this.”

And suddenly, Louis’s face is still wet with tears (and probably  _ snot, _ gross) but there’s a very soft pair of lips on his. He kisses back greedily berating himself in the back of his mind for not practicing kissing or some shit, he hasn’t done it since the summer before university for god's sakes!

When Harry pulls away Louis whines, but Harry just laughs. “I think maybe we should wait until we’re not in the Vegas police station to continue this,” he says.

“Oh, that’s right,” Louis frowns. He misses Harry’s lips. “And you need to get divorced. So that I can ask you out.”

“And the rest of us don’t want to be around you two when that finally happens,” Niall calls out from behind them. “Because I don’t think it’ll be this PG.”

“The husband has a point,” Liam says.

Louis smacks Liam. He tries to smack Niall. Harry takes ahold of both his hands firmly and leads him out into the sunlight.

Well. Niall’s probably right.

**Author's Note:**

> Come visit me at [my tumblr!](http://londonfoginacup.tumblr.com)   
> And if you're feeling generous you can [reblog the fic post!](http://londonfoginacup.tumblr.com/post/161807976594/dont-wait-dont-be-late)


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